


The Fool's Realm

by Bubblegum_monroe



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Asra (The Arcana) Route Spoilers, Female Apprentice (The Arcana), Other, Pre-Canon, Resurrection, The Lazaret (The Arcana)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26151523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubblegum_monroe/pseuds/Bubblegum_monroe
Summary: And in the small upper level of a store specializing in magic, golden eyes open to the world and see a tired smile above. She experiences an odd sensation in her chest, her heart skipping."Eos, you're alive."Is that who she is?
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The Fool's Realm

At first there is nothing.

Nothing is not darkness, it's not even light. It's just.

Nothing.

A lack of awareness perhaps, when something goes beyond one's field of vision. Nothing.

And then there's wind.

Wind that rustles the long, itchy grass around her, and if there is grass there is dirt which becomes hard under her head. And if there is dirt then the whole world is there, trees and horizon and sky, the sun hot and bright above her.

And if there is wind, there is air. 

She opens her eyes to the world with a gasp, empty lungs suddenly inflating. Yet she does not feel it, not the ache of no air or of expanding her lungs too much.

She feels nothing beyond her own skin.

"Come now, Eos, it's time to get up."

Right, she has a name.

A hand comes into her field of view, a scar on the pad of the thumb. Soft against her skin, not complaining under the pinch of gold on her fingers. 

And if there is a hand, there is a body and a face and it's been so long but it's-

" _ Hypatia _ ."

The other woman grins, the laugh lines in her face deepening and her dimples the same, wonderfully joyful as ever.

it's a terrible sight, a tremendous sight too. It's not that hard to recall the last time Eos saw her. Bleeding and bruised on marble steps with Apocrypha in her hands, begging, hurting. The screaming…

(Her father's fingers digging hard into her shoulder to stop her from running to her. Her mother's harsh voice in her ear.  _ This is what will happen to you if you step out of line _ .

Her poor aunt running to Hypatia's side, just seconds too late to hear her daughter's last words.

Her nightmares changed from there, to include those awful moments with her own beatings she'd had to take. She never felt safe before, but even more so after that.) 

But the most prominent memory, of course, is every time before that. Her wonderfully smart cousin chasing her and Hyperion through the orchard at their parents estate. Under orange and lemon trees, through the grape vines. They'd all been so young then.

She can smell it now, the oranges they'd pick and rip open when they got tired.

And just like that the world changes, grass shorter and softer. The white petals of the orange trees drifting in the wind. Or perhaps change isn't the right word, maybe she was always here, the marble building of home somewhere behind her.

"Hypatia, you- you're supposed to be  _ dead _ !" The disbelief is clear in her voice, she should be ecstatic but this only makes her feel suspicious of her own cousin. 

Hypatia's smile turns sad, but still a smile, her hands reaching for Eos' own. Her grip is tight, comforting. 

"Eos… What's the last thing you remember?" Her voice sounds the same, and she finds herself not wanting to focus on anything else. The pleasant familiarity, the smooth tone that was always calm, never wavering…

"I remember you being  _ dead _ , I saw it, Hypatia! I was there I  _ saw _ it-"

"Ah- ah, I mean it, the  _ real _ last thing. Where were you before now?" She glares at Hypatia, opening her mouth to argue. Then an ache in her heart, where her heart should be, stops her. And though she huffs, she tries to think about it.

The iron around her wrists, her ankles, cool at first then red hot. Had to keep her still, there wasn't any saving her, that's not what the island was for. Heat getting closer, hotter, head first to stop the screaming then all at once. Fire, more intense than anything she's felt, skin blistering,  _ boiling- _

"The plague… I caught the-"

And there's the argument too, mere days but so much happened so quickly. She was thinking of Hypatia then too, and her aunt. She couldn't abandon the shop, she couldn't leave Vesuvia. One more selfish act in place of another, she just wanted to  _ try _ to do something good.

Eos looks up, into the eyes of her cousin as ash falls around them. How did she not see it sooner? They'd been at the lazaret the whole time.

"I'm dead, aren't I? I thought- but Aether helped  _ you _ didn't she? You're not supposed to be with me." She frowns, retracting her hands to bring them to her chest, everything feels so confusing. "What's happening, tell me  _ immediately _ ."

Hypatia takes her hand, and leads her away from the shore, up the steps of that awful smoking tower. She can see the palace now, how grand it is. She'd hoped to see it when she was alive but she was always so busy, and when she wasn't… she wanted to spend time with Asra more.

Asra… he's long gone by now, she suspects, probably a smarter decision than what she made. She'd hate it if he went through what she did…

It's only a few minutes more and they're at the roof of the cathedral back home, had they changed it since she left? There never used to be stairs.

"I have someone you need to meet, and some explaining to do. But first…" Hypatia wraps her arms around her, squeezing her tight like she always used to do. Eos can't stop the tears forming in her eyes when she hugs her back, it felt so  _ good _ to hug her again. Squeezing until their bones creaked, and laughing it off as they let go. 

(She cannot help but think her aunt should be here, she'd be so happy to see her little girl again. It feels cruel that she isn't, cruel to know she spent so long mourning her and can't even meet her now.)

"Like I said, you need to meet someone," Hypatia turns Eos around to the edge of the roof, pointing downwards. She can see the upper level of the shop, her bed. It was cleaner, the blood she'd coughed, cried, vomited gone. Like it used to be and now… she was there too, lying on the bed and Asra at her side. "That's not you, Eos… I'm sorry."

Not her.

Just a creature wearing her face, her clothes, lying in her bed with the love of  _ her _ life looking… so, so sad…

"But she needs to be…" Eos murmurs, crouching down to get a better look. "She needs to be, doesn't she." 

There's something missing from the scene she's looking at, there's a sick feeling in her stomach because of it. Even if she can't place it.

That's all she feels, ill, foreboding and suspicious. She can't even work up excitement for her cousin. 

Hypatia places a hand on her shoulder, shifting to sit down by the fountain with her. Looking down into the water projecting her home to them as flowers bloom around them in the garden. More and more popping up around them.

"...  _ Yes _ ." Her own voice echoes to her, but not from her. Faint, even if it's right in her ear.

There's a figure to the other side of her, bright white light making up their form. She doesn't look directly, just into the reflection in the water. She can vaguely make out her own face, the halo behind her head she'd worn back in Firent. A symbol of her status.

Former status. 

" _ Please _ ." The figure begs,  _ she _ begs. And she can now make out the face of a dog instead of her own, and then it shifts and it's her own again. No halo this time.

The scene in the water changes too, to a table with that count she'd not paid any mind to at the head. Asra sitting with Muriel, doctor Devorak there too… the counters… but it seems unlike the descriptions of dining halls she's heard of… and the chains, dark and red. Simple but there's something so viscerally wrong with them that makes her stomach turn.

And that symbol. Something she recognizes, almost…

"Apocrypha…" Hypatia murmurs, fingers reaching to the water to dispell that scene and return it to the previous one. "It was in Apocrypha… I remember that all too well." Hypatia shifts next to her, to face Eos and the bright figure. "There's a lot to explain, but you've already guessed what's happening I suppose. You're going back, sort of. If you just give her your memories then it'll be like you never died at all, Eos." 

She doesn't look at either, just down at Asra and what might be herself. He looks tired, like he hasn't slept in days, or maybe weeks. It seems impossible, he could be comfortable sleeping on nails. He's holding her hand, saying something but water can't show her what. It's only water.

He's sad plenty of times. And there's a sharp pain in her heart as she recalls that, and how he looks completely devastated now.

He hadn't been sad when they argued, he was angry. Desperate even. He wanted her to go with him, begged her to just leave  _ with _ him. 

And she refused, of course. As she always did when they argued, too stubborn and scared inside to admit maybe someone had good intentions.

But this argument wasn't about that.

She wanted to save people, she wanted to do the right thing for once in her life and once again she expected Asra to bend to that.

Those were their bad moments, they were wonderful most of the time… but they were always so intense with their feelings for each other…

She shakes her head.

"No, not all of them." He deserved better, better than everything she'd ended up as. Bitter and scared at worst. "I won't give away all of them."

"Eos, you  _ have  _ to," Hypatia begs, reaching for her hand again. "Things can go…  _ wrong _ if you don't, you won't  _ be _ you!"

She shakes her head again, pushing her hair behind her shoulders and the figure echoes the movement. Learning, dimming. "No, I don't need to be  _ this _ , whoever  _ you _ ," She turns to the figure head on now even though it makes her eyes water, and they start to flicker, an innocent surprise on her- their? Face that doesn't match her in the slightest. Light dimming down almost to what seems like skin. "You are not going to be me, no one is going to be  _ me _ ." 

She looks back to Asra. Her Asra, habibti. She loved them more than anything, and he loved her just the same. 

He'd wanted to marry her before all this plague mess, and when he mentioned it her first instinct was to be afraid.

He doesn't deserve the vitriol and fear she feels.

"You are going to be better than me." She murmurs, "I don't care if you remember every last piece of memory that I do, all  _ you _ need to know to be me-" She chokes, hands grabbing fistfuls of her skirt. "All you need to know, is that I love him more than anyone in the world, and you are going to do the same. You had  _ better _ treat him right or so  _ help _ me." The very thought of this  _ thing _ making her mistakes… it's infuriating.

The form stops flickering, but there's still cracks where light slips through. Not whole, not  _ her _ but enough. They reach out their hand, a gold laden as her own.

"I understand," She says, and there is a smile on her face. As narcissistic as it probably is, the woman who was Eos feels comforted. "I understand you." 

They grab onto each other's hands, and there is nothing again. The world becomes something neither of them are aware of. Until there's just one left.

She doesn't need to remember everything, or anything at all. And the Fool's realm is left empty.

And in the small upper level of a store specializing in magic, golden eyes open to the world and see a tired smile above. She experiences an odd sensation in her chest, her heart skipping. 

"Eos, you're  _ alive _ ." There's joy in their voice, like a last shred of hope has finally paid off. Their fingers running down fhe side of her cheek.

Is that who she is?

Yes… that makes sense. She opens her mouth to say his name,  _ Asra- _

But even that small memory brings the world crashing down around her again. 


End file.
